Ricerc@Sapienza

A recent chronological re-assessment of the southern Levantine Early Bronze IV, changing the traditional absolute dates of the period, ca. 2300/2250-2000 BC, into ca. 2500-1950/1920 BC, compels us to re-evaluate traditional synchronisms between the southern Levant (Palestine and Transjordan) and Egypt during that time-span. Moving from such new chronological proposals for Early Bronze IV in the southern Levant, the article presents a brief overview of the available iconographic, textual and archaeological evidence of Egyptian-Levantine connections for the period comprised between ca. 2550/2500 and 1950/1920 BC and of past studies and interpretations. Based on these insights, we present a short re-appraisal of the basic historicalarchaeological issues and the current state-of-the art of this research domain, in order to shortly address the main open questions.